Long Live Barbecue

Barbecue yields the idea of that smoky scent, meat sizzling on the grill, sitting at a plastic-covered picnic table outside under the sky and among the trees. That’s just what Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is, except it’s inside and it’s not just you and your family.

A Texas-style chain new to Spokane (this is the first one to open in Eastern Washington), Dickey’s sports an Old West theme, with wagon wheel chandeliers, vintage posters and black-and-white photos of Travis Dickey opening the restaurant’s first location in Dallas in 1941. The food is quick-causal, a “good home cooked meal in a fast-food speed,” says co-owner Walt Buyea.

Texas-style chopped beef brisket, southern pulled pork, spicy cheddar sausage and Virginia-style ham make up some of the nine different meats on the menu. Then there are 12 sides to choose from, including coleslaw, potato salad, mac and cheese and fried onion tanglers. Sandwiches, potatoes (“bakers”) and salads add to the barbecue fare, and for dessert, free soft serve ice cream, every day all the time.

Customers order in a move-with-the-food method, picking what they want on their tray as they mosey down the line. The meats are kept whole in a warmer so all of it is cut to order.

Before he owned a Dickey’s, Buyea would eat at a Dickey’s location near his Texas business several times a week. He fell in love with the smoked turkey.

“It just melts in your mouth. That’s what I fell in love with,” he says.

That’s where “Ole Hickory” comes in, a beast of a steel smoking machine. It can hold 14 20-pound briskets with pork ribs at one time. All of the meat is smoked 12 hours overnight with raw-cut hickory wood, so if they run out during the day, they simply run out.

It’s what makes good barbecue, Buyea says, what makes the ribs fall off the bone.

Buyea and Dawn Carr opened this location a few weeks ago, but they already have plans to open other Dickey’s in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area.